InfoQ

News

Microsoft Takes On Eclipse with Visual Studio 2008 Shell

Posted by Jonathan Allen on Jun 07, 2007 01:48 AM

Community
.NET
Topics
Artifacts & Tools
Tags
Visual Studio Shell ,
Visual Studio

For a number of years Visual Studio has supported non-Microsoft languages as plug-ins. However, the high cost of Visual Studio itself prevented it from being a platform for 3rd party language developers. This has changed with the announcement of Visual Studio 2008 Shell.

Visual Studio 2008 Shell is literally just the Visual Studio shell sans-compilers. VS Shell is completely free of licensing and royalty fees, making it a suitable platform for competing languages.

VS Shell packages can be deployed in one of two modes. Integrated mode merges the package into the standard Visual Studio environment. This should allow developers to work with traditional VS languages like C++, VB, or C# alongside newer languages like IronPython.

The second mode, known as isolated mode, is more for application development than language development. In the example on the Visual Studio Shell site , an end-user application called Fabrikam Home Automation Studio is shown. As this application is a specialized tool rather than a typical programming language, it runs with toolbars and menus customized just for it. One could think of this as a general case of Visual Studio Express, where each 'version' is isolated from the next even though they technically share the same IDE.

VS Shell does not have support for any Microsoft tools or languages built in. However, if the user also has a paid Visual Studio SKU (Standard, Professional, or Team System) then the tools and languages will be available alongside VS Shell packages deployed in integrated mode.

Developers considering using VS Shell are being asked to contact Microsoft at vsipinfo@microsoft.com.

Related Sponsor

Red Gate Software makes ingeniously simple tools for over 500,000 SQL Server and .NET professionals.

1 comment

Watch Thread Reply

MS Partner Program by James Vastbinder Posted Jun 7, 2007 10:27 AM

  1. Back to top

    MS Partner Program

    Jun 7, 2007 10:27 AM by James Vastbinder

    So I can't help but adding this nugget. There is a little know program at MSFT called Empower. The URL is here: https://partner.microsoft.com/40011351 The price is $375/yr on a subscription basis, but I think within the budget of w guys a dog and a coffee pot...

    Reply

Educational Content

Bindings, Platforms, and Innovation

This presentation focuses on the Internet and separating myth from fact, history from the future, and the mundane from the imaginative. Bob Frankston presents a vision of what could and should be.

  •  Jul 02, 2009,
  •  

Orchestrating Long Running Activities with JBoss / JBPM

This article explores the use of JBoss and jBPM to implement design solutions that effectively address the issue of orchestrating long running activities.

  •  Jul 01, 2009,
  •  

Neo4j - The Benefits of Graph Databases

This presentation covers the use of graph databases as an optimal solution for data that is difficult to fit in static tables, rapidly evolving data or data that has a lot of optional attributes.

Realistic about Risk: Software development with Real Options

This session introduces Real Options and shows how it can help in running your project. Real Options is a decision-making process that can be used to manage risk.

  •  Jun 30, 2009,
  •  

Communication Flexibility Using Bindings

This article discusses the use of bindings on services and references (including the instance of non-configured bindings) as the means to implement SCA communications in a Web and SOA environment.

  •  Jun 30, 2009,
  •  

Writing DSLs in Groovy

After a short introduction to DSLs, Scott Davis plays with the keyboard showing how to approach the creation of a DSL by typing working snippets of Groovy code that get executed.

Scaling Agile with C/ALM (Collaborative Application Lifecycle Management)

IBM Rational and InfoQ present, Scaling Agile with C/ALM, an eBook showing organizations how to become “finely tuned software delivery machines” by enabling team integration and scaling.

Concurrent Programming with Microsoft F#

Amanda Laucher presents a real life enterprise application written in F#. She shows actual code snippets, explaining design decisions and suggesting how to use some of the F# constructs.